(TEL) How Heatwaves, Floods And Climate Change Are Altering the Taste of Your Favourite Wines

[AKR]

(TEL) How Heatwaves, Floods And Climate Change Are Altering the Taste of Your Favourite Wines
How Heatwaves, Floods And Climate Change Are Altering the Taste of Your Favourite Wines
2021-07-29 10:30:34.328 GMT


By Victoria Moore, Wine correspondent

(Telegraph) -- A couple of years ago, when I told a colleague that in
Champagne they were experimenting with different grape varieties as a
contingency against global warming, he was incredulous. “You mean different
clones, surely? Not completely different grape varieties.” The idea that
champagne may soon taste different was a step too far, even for a wine insider
familiar with the viticultural challenges of climate change.

It wouldn’t be today. With every year that passes, we become more aware that
the world is getting warmer and, unfortunately, more familiar with extreme
weather events that cause devastation to the landscape and to local
communities.

Earlier this month, exceptionally heavy rain caused deadly flash floods in
Germany and Belgium on a scale that shocked the world. Germany’s Ahr Valley,
whose main business is winemaking, was one of the hardest-hit areas.

The region’s 38 wineries lost cellars, barrels and bottles; in one case a
heavy grape press was carried away by the deluge. Meike and Dörte Näkel,
sisters and fifth-generation winemakers, lost their family business, but were
grateful to escape with their lives after clinging to a tree for seven hours
until a rescue boat came to their aid.

The disaster is part of a grim pattern. Across the world, winemakers and grape
growers have increasingly been coping with the havoc and crop damage wreaked
by increasingly erratic weather: hail, spring frosts, warm winters, heat
spikes in summer, droughts and floods, not to mention the wildfires suffered
in California and Australia.

Then there’s the underlying issue of temperatures. These have risen
persistently over the past three decades. This can be seen when you track
grape-picking dates back to the Middle Ages.

In Beaune, Burgundy, between 1354 and 1987, grapes were, on average, picked
from Sept 28, whereas from 1988 to 2018, the harvest began, on average,
13 days earlier, according to a study published in Climate of the Past.

It’s a pattern that has accelerated in recent years. “2008 and 2013 are the
last late-picking vintages we have had… everything else has been either normal
picking date or early picking date,” says Jacques Devauges of Domaine des
Lambrays in Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits.

Seasonal fluctuations in weather can create big differences in the flavour of
the wine – that’s why everyone goes on so much about vintages. The best wines
are made in marginal climates, places where grapes can ripen, but only just,
giving the grapes a long growing season, and producing fruit with good acidity
and finely delineated flavours – all of which makes wine regions very
sensitive to thermal change.

The upside is that England and Wales owes its exciting new wine industry to
global warming. But even here, you can see change within change. England’s
credentials as a sparkling wine region are now so compelling that Taittinger
and Pommery have invested in vineyards here. Now, England is also beginning to
produce convincing still wines, which require a warmer climate than sparkling.

And what about the future? If global temperatures rise by 2C, then
wine-growing regions in the Pacific Northwest could increase by 20 to 100 per
cent and those in New Zealand by 15 to 60 per cent, according to a study
published last year in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
USA.

But the same study estimated that in this conservative warming scenario (a
second scenario considered a 4C rise) 56 per cent of the world’s current wine
regions would be lost as we know them. Some countries would be more affected
than others, with Spain and Italy expected to lose 65 per cent and 68 per cent
of their climatically suitable winegrowing regions respectively.

Of course, to some extent, it is possible to adapt: that is what Champagne is
looking at doing. Right now, almost all champagne is made from one or a
combination of three grapes: chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier.
However, officially, seven different grape varieties are permitted.

Bollinger is one champagne house that has been planting some of the forgotten
old varieties in the hope that slow-ripening petit meslier and arbanne will be
able to bring more freshness to the champagne in years to come.

On behalf of the entire region, agronomists are also experimenting with new
grapes, crossing champagne varieties with other grapes to see what other
solutions they can find to the global warming question. And yes, inevitably
these grapes will make wines that taste different.

In Bordeaux, after a decade of research, four new red and two new white grape
varieties have been authorised for use in the region’s wines. The red grapes
arinarnoa (a cross between tannat and cabernet sauvignon), castets, marselan
and touriga nacional, along with the white alvarinho and liliorila (a baroque
and chardonnay cross) were selected for their ability to cope with shorter
growing seasons, higher temperatures and increased water stress.

The idea is that these could be insinuated into the blend to balance the wines
without creating radical flavour differences, though that’s not to say that
wines would taste the same.

Some scientists have suggested that if temperatures keep rising, the only way
to keep producing good wine in Burgundy, for example, would be to rip out
pinot noir and replace it with grenache or mourvèdre. To which the response
has to be: would it even be burgundy if it weren’t made from pinot noir?

Between 1967 and 2010, the Douro Valley in Portugal recorded a 1.7C increase
in average temperature throughout the vegetative cycle, from bud burst to
picking, and in the spring of 2017, the region experienced a rare snowfall and
localised frost.

These prompted Adrian Bridge, chief executive of the Fladgate Partnership,
whose brands include Taylor’s port, to set up the Porto Protocol, a platform
to help wine producers communicate on how they can manage the impact of
climate change (by moving vineyards to fresher, higher locations, through
canopy management and looking at different grape varieties, for instance) and
reduce their own contribution to global warming.

Marta Mendonca, who manages operations there, tells me that the concern that
comes up most frequently is water: “the need to manage water more mindfully.”
But as she notes, “More than it is an issue for wine, climate crisis is an
issue for us as a species.”

Wines of the week

Morrisons The Best Soave 2020

Italy (11%, Morrisons, £4.25)

In Soave, in the northeast of Italy, they’re increasingly using an old vine
trellising system called pergola Veronese to mitigate the effects of climate
change by increasing the shade afforded to the vines and protect them from the
sun’s fierce heat. This soave is a really super cheap white. Juicy, and
reminiscent of lemon mousse.

Tesco Finest Pouilly-Fumé 2020

France (13%, Tesco, £13)

Made for Tesco by Fournier Père et Fils, a family company that was established
almost a century ago, who say they are “one of the first witnesses of climate
change [and have] adapted farming practices to cope with this.” This is a very
impressive Loire sauvignon blanc, marrying riffs of grassy freshness with a
whiff of struck flint.

Château La Négly

Tradition La Clape 2019 Languedoc, France (12.5%, Co-op, £12)

The beautiful wines of Château La Négly are a new arrival on the shelves at
the Co-op. There’s a lovely rosé and also this gorgeous red, which is both
fresh and richly flavoured, made from a blend of syrah, grenache and mourvèdre
and aged in French oak.